Bones and All is a 2022 romantic horror film directed by Luca Guadagnino from a screenplay by David Kajganich, based on the 2015 novel Bones & All by Camille DeAngelis. Set in the late 1980s, the film stars Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet as a pair of young cannibals who develop feelings for each other on a road trip across the United States. Michael Stuhlbarg, André Holland, Chloë Sevigny, David Gordon Green, Jessica Harper, Jake Horowitz, Sean Bridgers, and Mark Rylance appear in supporting roles.
Bones and All had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2022, where it won the Silver Lion for best direction and the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Russell. The film was released theatrically in the United States on November 18 by United Artists Releasing's Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, and elsewhere by Warner Bros. Pictures, with the exception of Italy, where it was distributed by Vision Distribution. It is the first MGM film to be distributed internationally by Warner Bros. under their new multi year international theatrical distribution pact with MGM, following MGM's previous deal with Universal Pictures.
The film received positive reviews, with critics praising the performances of Russell, Chalamet, and Rylance, Guadagnino's direction, the cinematography, score, and fusion of genres. It received a variety of award nominations, including Best Feature, Best Lead Performance for Russell, and Best Supporting Performance for Rylance at the 38th Independent Spirit Awards. However, it underperformed at the box office, grossing $15.2 million against a production budget of $16–20 million.
Plot
In 1988, teenager Maren Yearly lives in Virginia, where she is invited to a sleepover by a classmate. Although she knows she's not allowed to go, she sneaks out. During the sleepover, she compulsively bites her classmate's finger, partially severing it. Maren and her single father, Frank, quickly move to Maryland. Shortly after Maren's 18th birthday, Frank abandons her, leaving her cash, her birth certificate, and a tape.
In the tape, Frank tells the story of Maren's first cannibalistic episode, when she killed her babysitter as a young child. Similar incidents continued to occur over the years, and while Frank helped her evade the consequences, he became distressed by Maren's lack of remorse. He concludes the tape with the hope that she will overcome her urges. Maren decides to go to Minnesota, the birthplace of her mother, Janelle, of whom she has no memories.
She takes a bus to Columbus, Ohio, where she meets Sully, an eccentric fellow "eater" who located her by smell. She follows Sully to a house with a dying, elderly woman. The next morning, Maren awakens to find Sully devouring the woman's corpse and joins him. Maren flees shortly after. While stealing supplies from a convenience store in Indiana, Maren meets Lee, later finding him having eaten a man who harassed a customer inside the store.
Stealing his victim's truck, Lee offers Maren a ride. As they embark on a cross-country road trip, Maren and Lee fall in love. During a brief stay in Lee's hometown in Kentucky, Maren notices his unwillingness to talk about his father's absence and why Lee avoids the town. His younger sister, Kayla, unaware of his true nature, scolds him for constantly leaving.
Maren and Lee encounter what also appear to be a pair of “eaters”, Jake and Brad. Maren rebels at the fact that Brad doesn't share their cravings, but instead voluntarily chooses to participate in cannibalism. Jake also speaks of the intensity of consuming a body "bones and all". Lee and Maren leave while the men are asleep, causing Jake to wake up and chase after them. After Maren expresses hunger during a stop at a local carnival, Lee seduces, then attacks a booth worker and kills him. Once she and Lee have feasted on the body, Maren is guilt-ridden to discover that the man was married and had children.
Using a phone book, Maren finds the home of her grandmother, Barbara, who had no prior knowledge of her existence. Barbara reveals that she and her husband adopted Janelle at birth after she was abandoned behind a police station, and that Janelle has since voluntarily committed herself to a psychiatric hospital in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.
Maren meets Janelle, who has eaten her own hands. She reads a letter Janelle wrote to her, which concludes with the belief that Maren would be better off dead. Janelle attacks her, but a nurse restrains her. Maren confronts Lee about his decisions, then runs away while he is asleep in the car at a gas station. She is eventually approached by Sully, who has been following her. She reprimands him, causing him to storm off in anger. Once Lee realizes Maren is gone, he decides to return home.
After a while, Maren returns to Kentucky. While there, she runs into Kayla, who tells her that on the night their alcoholic and abusive father disappeared, he beat his two children and disappeared while Kayla ran to find the police. Initially considered the prime suspect, Lee was cleared of involvement when the blood on him was proven to be his own.
After Maren reunites with Lee, they rekindle their relationship and travel west. Lee reveals to Maren that his father also ate people, bit his son during their fight, and that Lee eventually fed on him. Maren declares her love for Lee, and the two decide to attempt to live a normal life together.
Sometime later, the couple is living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Maren works at a college bookstore. She returns home one day to find Sully has broken into their apartment, and he forces himself on to her and taunts her with a knife. After Lee returns, the pair manage to kill Sully, but Lee is fatally wounded in the struggle. While searching Sully's purse, Maren finds strands of Kayla's hair and realizes she was Sully's last victim. Lee expresses his wish for Maren to eat him, "bones and all”, which she reluctantly does.
Cast
Taylor Russell as Maren Yearly Timothée Chalamet as Lee Mark Rylance as Sully André Holland as Frank Yearly, Maren's father Michael Stuhlbarg as Jake, an eater Chloë Sevigny as Janelle Kerns, Maren's mother and an eater David Gordon Green as Brad, a police officer who is a paraphilic cannibal but not an eater Jessica Harper as Barbara Kerns, Maren's adoptive grandmother Sean Bridgers as Barry Cook, a drunk man who becomes Lee's first victim Jake Horowitz as Lance, a carnival worker and weed dealer who becomes Lee's second victim Kendle Coffey as Sherry Anna Cobb as Kayla, Lee's sister
Production Development One of the film's producers, Theresa Park, was on a trip to the London Book Fair in 2015, when she discovered Camille DeAngelis's Bones & All, and described it as one of the "most heartbreaking" novels she had read. She "optioned" the screen rights in 2016. Park only sent the book to one screenwriter, David Kajganich, as she thought he would like it based on his work on AMC's The Terror. The screenwriter found the story to be a "surprising blend of genres" and described it as "exciting". He and Park met with DeAngelis to know if she approved of him adapting it, as the story centered on a young woman, which she did.
Kajganich's first choice for director was Luca Guadagnino, as he trusted him due to their previous collaborations. Guadagnino was busy with other projects at the time, and declined. Kajganich decided to contact director Antonio Campos, with whom he had also worked in the past, and he boarded the project in 2019. The script was developed by Park and Kajganich over a period of five years. Neither of them was fond of the idea of having a film studio meddling with the project, so they started it independently. The first draft took around two and a half years, due to Kajganich's other commitments, he nevertheless appreciated the long process as it allowed him to make decisions that would have not been possible if the film had studio backing. The screenplay was finished over the COVID-19 lockdown but Campos had to drop out to work on another project, at that point Kajganich reached to Guadagnino again, who only read the script as a favor due to their friendship. Guadagnino joined the project a couple of weeks later, with the condition that actor Timothée Chalamet, with whom he had worked on Call Me by Your Name (2017), got on board as well.
After meeting with the director in Rome, Chalamet accepted the offer and joined as producer as well. Guadagnino and Chalamet wanted to keep the production independent so they sought out Italian financiers at the end of 2020. Guadagnino first contacted The Apartment's Lorenzo Mieli, with whom he had worked previously on HBO's We Are Who We Are, Mieli teamed with Memo's Francesco Melzi d'Eril and Marco Morabito, both frequent Guadagnino collaborators, to front the $20 million needed for the film. Guadagnino and Chalamet also contacted Call Me by Your Name producer and personal friend, Peter Spears to join them. Spears remarked on the uniqueness of the story as one of the reasons, to not look for studio involvement. Once they reached the budget, the North American distribution rights were bought by MGM in a negative pickup deal. The team including the producers, Guadagnino, Chalamet, and the rest of the actors, deferred their salaries until after the distribution rights were bought, which "really helped with investors," said Melzi d'Eril. Both Guadagnino and Kajganich credited Chalamet's involvement as the main reason the film got financed in the first place. The film was executive produced by Giovanni Corrado and Raffaella Viscardi; with investment coming from The Apartment, 3 Marys, Memo, Tenderstories, Adler, Elafood, Elafilm, Manila, Serfis and Wise.
On January 28, 2021, it was announced that Taylor Russell and Chalamet would star in the film, Filming began in May, by which time Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg, André Holland, Jessica Harper, Chloë Sevigny, Francesca Scorsese, and David Gordon Green had joined the cast. Shooting took place in Chillicothe, Ohio and Cincinnati, Ohio, which makes it Guadagnino's first film set and made in the United States. Production was affected by break-ins that occurred for some of the crew's cars, leading to a request being submitted to Cincinnati City Council in late June to provide $50,000 for increased security. While there was some criticism over the proposed use of taxpayer funds for a private enterprise, City Council ultimately passed a measure to grant the funds. Filming wrapped in July 2021.
Guadagnino said that Bones and All is "a very romantic story, about the impossibility of love and yet, the need for it. Even in extreme circumstances." He also said that Chalamet and Russell have "a gleaming power" and are able to "portray universal feelings".
Marketing The first teaser for Bones and All was released on August 10, 2022. American artist Elizabeth Peyton was commissioned by director Luca Guadagnino to create a painting based on the film. The resulting painting, which she titled "Kiss (Bones and All)", was turned into the film's first poster, which was on display during the Venice International Film Festival, hanging on the 13th-century palace Ca' da Mosto in Venice.
The official poster for the film was released on September 29, 2022, accompanied by its first trailer, which featured a rendition of Leonard Cohen's "You Want It Darker". The song was chosen by lead actor Timothée Chalamet. Safeeyah Kazi of Collider called the trailer "chilling" and "intense". Toussaint Egan of Polygon noted similarities to 1994's crime thriller Natural Born Killers. Allegra Frank of The Daily Beast called it "gorgeously bloody", and praised it for not sharing too much information. Lauren Milici of Total Film described the trailer as Let The Right One In meets Bonnie and Clyde." An extended trailer was released on October 5, 2022.
Music